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June 1st, 2008
Via Wired, an alarming look at the concept of peak water, the point at which the renewable supply is forever outstripped by unquenchable demand. As the report notes:
“…the scarcity of freshwater is no longer a problem restricted to poor countries. Shortages are reaching crisis proportions in even the most highly developed regions, and they’re quickly becoming commonplace in our own backyard, from the bleached-white bathtub ring around the Southwest’s half-empty Lake Mead to the parched state of Georgia, where the governor prays for rain. Crops are collapsing, groundwater is disappearing, rivers are failing to reach the sea…
…Freshwater is the ultimate renewable resource, but humanity is extracting and polluting it faster than it can be replenished. Rampant economic growth — more homes, more businesses, more water-intensive products and processes, a rising standard of living — has simply outstripped the ready supply, especially in historically dry regions. Compounding the problem, the hydrologic cycle is growing less predictable as climate change alters established temperature patterns around the globe…
“…The CAP isn’t the only straw sucking at the Colorado. Seven states and dozens of Indian reservations, as well as Mexico, tap its flow. Development has sapped the river, a problem exacerbated by a drought called “perhaps the worst in 500 years” by US interior secretary Gale Norton. Lake Mead, an immense reservoir that dams the Colorado to supply most of Phoenix’s water, has a 50-50 chance of running dry by 2021, according to a study by the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. Larry Dozier, the CAP’s deputy general manager, calls this finding “absurd,” claiming that studies show the reservoir won’t disappear entirely, even in the worst case. However, the Scripps researchers counter that their calculations are conservative and warn that “the water shortage is likely to be more dire in reality.”
“…Australia has always been dry. It’s the most arid continent after Antarctica. Covering an area roughly the size of the lower 48 states, it supports less than one-tenth the US population, and even that is an enormous strain on water supplies. The country was founded during the second-worst drought in its history, but the worst dry spell is unfolding right now. Rainfall, which has declined to 25 percent of the long-term average, is projected to plummet another 40 percent by 2050.
Three factors are working to desiccate the landscape. One is simple overexploitation of existing resources. More water is withdrawn to support agriculture, industry, and cities than the system can handle. Another is El Niño, a weather pattern that periodically alters rainfall, further drying the continent. The third is climate change. Australia is growing hotter, which compounds the other two problems by boosting both consumption and evaporation….”